The petition for the initiative to end the harmonized sales tax (HST) will be submitted to the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives and petition results by electoral district are now available.

“Further to the Judgment of Chief Justice Robert Bauman of this date, I am causing a letter to go forward on Monday, August 23, 2010, to the Select Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly that contains the following text:

Pursuant to section 10 of the Recall and Initiative Act, I have now determined that an initiative petition issued to William Vander Zalm on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 has met the requirements of s. 7 of the Act.

I have further determined that the proponent, Mr. Vander Zalm, has complied with Part 4 of the Act.

Accordingly, as mandated by the Act, I am enclosing a copy of the petition and draft Bill”

said Craig James, Acting Chief Electoral Officer.

Under the Recall and Initiative Act, signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters in each of the province’s 85 electoral districts were required on the petition. This represents 299,611 valid signatures. The petition sheets contain 557,383 valid signatures. 6,556 voters registered as canvassers to collect signatures for the petition over a 90 day period. The results by electoral district are available on the Elections BC website at www.elections.bc.ca/docs/init/IP-2010-002-Results.pdf.

Initiative legislation came into force in 1995. Six previous initiative applications have been given approval in principle by the Chief Electoral Officer. None of them obtained the required number of signatures.

Elections BC will publish the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Initiative Petition: “An initiative to end the harmonized sales tax (HST), February 4 – June 30, 2010” in the fall. This report will describe the activities Elections BC undertook to administer the petition. The report will also contain statements of Elections BC’s expenses, a summary of the initiative proponent financing report and summaries of advertising disclosure reports submitted by initiative advertising sponsors.